Snape's Redemption
by Indigo Ziona
Summary: End of/post Goblet of Fire fic... Snape's assignment from Dumbledore (Chapter *3* now up! go read!). It's got Death Eaters, Voldemort, angst, passion, powdered root of asphodel and infusion of wormwood, and lots of *suspense*. (and /no/ romance :) )
1. The Task

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Disclaimer – hey guess what? All characters so far are JK Rowling's!

Author's Note – Yeah, it's another 'what is it like in Snape's head' fic. With some adventure and stuff, too, but at the moment I'm just focusing on Snape's character. He's fascinating because he's apparently got all the traits of a villain and yet on the side of good... and so gives us a way to look at the nasty bits of ourselves without driving us into insanity. Snape's case can only be defended by a few ways: by making excuses for his villainy by giving him a bad family history, by playing up his good points, or by revealing his bad characteristics in a way with which we can sympathise. I've attempted to do it the last way. I don't want to make Snape nice, just take him as I find him and find out who I've got in the end – good guy or bad guy. Because – philosophical point – there's a Snape in me. There's also a Harry, and a Hermione, and a Ron, but everyone gets to see them – they're popular. Who wants to see Snape?

Please Review. Now... on with the fic!

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Snape's Redemption

Chapter 1 – The Task

Snape watched the students of Hogwarts gathering, for the final part of the Triwizard Tournament. Even if he had been a person inclined to do so, he could feel no joy, no ripple of excitement at the champion's last task. Under his midnight robes, the mark burned his arm once again, and he slunk back to his dungeon, to be alone in his office.

Startling even himself, Severus Snape found tears in his eyes. It was painful, indeed, but even the Cruciatus curse could not bring tears from him now. A silent part of him knew the reason behind the pain - the mental, not the physical. The mark was a terrible reminder of his past, the things he had done willingly for the Dark Lord. The innocents killed. 

He had hurt so many of the people who cared about him... now no one cared about him and that was because he did not let them. Why shouldn't they know him for the evil creature that he was? He felt like a cage harbouring a monster, waiting to escape. He detested the creature inside him. And mingled with his self-loathing was that old habitual fear of his former lord – and the new fear that now his disloyalty would be discovered, and his life would be in danger. But what did he care about that? He didn't deserve his life.

'Severus...'

Snape looked around, to see Karkaroff, the head of Durmstrang, standing by the door, his face clouded over with the signs of similar pangs that he himself was feeling.

'Karkaroff.'

'You feel it burning, don't you?'

Snape gritted his teeth, and nodded. He wondered what the head of Durmstrang planned to do. Return? But he would most likely be killed. Did he want some kind of support in this? In staying or going?

But he turned away. 'Severus... I cannot go back. I am going to leave – give my apologies to Dumbledore – and hope that he doesn't find me.'

He strode out, not waiting for a reply, or offering an invitation. Snape cursed his briskly retreating back, silently and angrily. That coward was going to do what he'd never do – flee.

He would never flee – yet why did he want to run after Karkaroff and ask to be allowed to go with him? He knew that the Dark Lord would find them, but maybe together they would have a better chance.

The mark continued to burn – but why? What was _he_ planning? What could he be planning, when he must be so weak? And who would be waiting on him, that repulsive Sirius Black? How ironic that it should be his worst enemy from his school days who would be discovered to be serving the same lord he himself had once bowed to. Snape arose, determined to tell Dumbledore all. He walked, slowly and deliberately back to the Quidditch pitch, and made his way up to the teachers' seats.

Once he was out in the open again, he realised some chaos had ensued. The Beauxbatons student and Durmstrang student were out, but Diggory and the annoying Potter were nowhere to be seen. Minutes later, he was on the pitch with the gathering horde of students and teachers, McGonagall desperately trying to keep order.

'Minerva – what happened?'

She whirled around as if he had startled her, wide-eyed and on edge. 'Severus… Potter and Diggory… the cup was a Portkey.'

Although she spoke these words almost unintelligibly, in a rush of breath, Snape understood what she meant. It meant they did not know where Potter and Diggory were – that someone had rigged the contest so that they would be apparated away as soon as they touched the cup. And Potter being the Dark Lord's most famous adversary… Snape frantically searched the crowd for the headmaster. This could not be a coincidence.

Dumbledore was crouched by the place where the cup had been – surrounded by a group of teachers. Madame Hooch, Hagrid, and Professor Sprout were all elsewhere, but the others, all in varying states of hysteria, were talking to their headmaster. Moody was at the front of it all, and unlike the others, his sober face was calm. The sight of him made Snape shiver, another nasty memory rising to the surface. It was his trial as a Death Eater – the sight of Alastor Moody, grave, furrowed brow, and his eyes full of hatred.

He pushed to the front. 'Headmaster, I need to talk to you.'

Dumbledore looked up. His eyes were as Snape had hardly seen them before – anxious, concerned, unsettled, and full of a melancholy knowledge of what could be to come. Their sadness reminded him of his headmaster's eyes from when he was just in his twenties – when he had confessed to him that he was serving Voldemort.

'Yes – of course Severus.' He spoke as if he knew what was coming – what Snape was going to say. Dumbledore stood up, and Snape moved closer to him so that only he could see the mark on his arm when he pulled up his sleeve. 'It burned me tonight – Lord Voldemort wants me by his side. Karkaroff has fled. And Potter…'

'Yes, Severus,' Dumbledore said, his voice heavy. 'The situation at hand is a grim one. I can only hope…'

Suddenly, Potter appeared among them once again – bloody, pale, and clutching the dead body of Cedric Diggory in his arms.

It was several hours since Potter had reappeared – since Professor Moody turned out to be the younger Barty Crouch. The tension he had felt around Moody all year seemed grimly humorous now… he wanted to laugh at himself with a harsh empty laugh – why had he not seen it? Because he was too afraid of Moody. He was pathetic.

Professor Dumbledore summoned Snape to his office after Potter had told him what had happened. It was nearing one o'clock, but Snape had already realised, with a nauseous certainty, there was a long night ahead.

Severus Snape seated himself, as his headmaster collected his thoughts.

'Severus, you need to know what Harry Potter saw when he took the Portkey. It was, indeed, a plot of Voldemort.'

Snape nodded grimly.

Dumbledore went on. 'Mr. Potter… witnessed the rebirthing.'

In a rare display of emotion, Snape's face flared with horror. 'Surely not?' he burst out, shocked at the implications of these words.

The old man nodded, slowly, and part of Snape understood that within him was the same deep shock. 'Severus – Mr. Potter told me that he saw the Death Eaters. He heard Voldemort's speech.'

Snape shivered, and commented, 'The Death Eaters were by his side… They all returned, except me.'

'And Karkaroff, apparently. He referred to three missing Death Eaters – one who remained loyal…'

'Crouch,' Snape said softly.

'One who had left forever…'

'Karkaroff – or me.'

'One who was too cowardly to return.'

Snape felt chilled – his hard heart was ice. He knew what the Dark Lord did to cowards and traitors. And he knew that the one Lord Voldemort was referring to was he.

He nodded, his anxious lips pressed together so hard they had turned pale. And understood what he must do.

'Professor – I have been your spy once before… and…' His voice was breaking up, the words stumbling on his tongue. He mentally shook himself. _Don't act like a fool, Severus Snape._

Dumbledore's eyes met Snape's. 'That is true Severus – but the risks are higher this time. I cannot require that of you again – you have already proved yourself.'

'No – Headmaster – I will do this. You have my word I will do all I can to fight Voldemort – this is the best way…'

That same look of sadness and concern filled the headmaster's face. Snape slowly realised that of all people, Dumbledore actually cared about him. He had been a grandfatherly figure struggling to save him from the evil path he was walking when he had been just another Slytherin student – now he was trying to stop him from taking the task that would probably cost his life. 'Severus, you know I cannot ask that of you.'

'My mind is made up.'

Dumbledore saw that it was. He was filled with a bitter sympathy for his potions master. How could Snape bear such a burden when he would let no one help him?

'Very well. Do not go just yet, though. I should like to take full stock of the situation at hand, and enlist the help of as many people as possible. I shall ask Cornelius Fudge...'

Snape snorted in derision – Dumbledore nodded.

'Come with me to the Hospital Wing.'

The Potter boy was asleep when they got there – half of his sleeping potion was gone, the other half still in the goblet next to his bed. The old, galling hatred rose up again, he could almost taste it in his mouth like vomit. Of course, the famous Harry Potter would have this treatment. No one had cared what one Severus Snape had seen, what ordeals he had endured, what pain he had suffered.

He shook the clouds from his head, and looked at the sleeping boy with fresh eyes. _He didn't turn away. He didn't give up. He brought back the dead body of his team mate – would you have done the same, Severus?_

It was too much. He tore his eyes away from the sight of the slumbering celebrity, who had endured a nightmare he knew nothing and everything about. 

And then – the fool Cornelius Fudge, the arguing – it went past in a blur. And the black dog was Sirius Black,it appeared Dumbledore believed his story too. Snape was angry, although the real anger was not at Dumbledore being fool enough to accept the story of that lowlife, but because he knew that Dumbledore didn't trust people lightly, and he had to respect that trust, and would not be allowed the indulgence of having Black as his enemy for any longer.

And then – then, Dumbledore had told him it was time. It was surreal and he was hardly aware of his own actions... His own footsteps echoed like distant noises, his shadows mingled sociably with the shadows of the hallway, as if they had nothing to do with him. Hogwarts was ghostly this time of night, the walls seemed misty and insubstantial. He hardly watched to see where he was going, instead he was drawn down that path he must take, washed along like a leaf in the rapids, forced on in that inexorable flow with no choice of his own.

Soon he was outside, the sky moonlit and silvery, the air crisp and just a little too cold. He pulled his cloak further around him, and walked onward, out of the castle grounds.

Now was the time. He took his wand and, taking a long, slow, final glance of Hogwarts in farewell, disapparated.

And found himself staring straight into the eyes of Lord Voldemort.


	2. The Auror

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Disclaimer – most characters are pure J.K. Rowling, and I don't intend on making any money from them.

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Chapter 2 – The Auror

Lord Voldemort stared at him, his eyes like knives. The circle of Death Eaters closed around him.

'A little late, Severus, are you not?'

Snape looked to his face, and saw it stony from years of hardening cruelty. And his eyes… their green was not of grass or trees, but of metal, copper given a green coat after so much corruption. Snape cowered and shook, the wind ripped through his cloak, his body – his heart, if he had one.

'I – I am sorry my Lord. I could hardly believe…'

'_Crucio_.'

It was indescribable… a pain that passed through his body with every cell crying out in agony… He could not cry out, though, he would not show his pain. In some hazy distance, Voldemort was still speaking.

'Is it any wonder you know so little of my plans, Snape, when you have spent these years fawning over the fool Dumbledore instead of awaiting my return? You have scarcely made my path easy – you would chant a countercurse to save the Potter boy's life!'

He dropped his wand, and allowed Snape to form his reply. He stuttered, 'Master – forgive me – I did not know that the curse was your doing… I thought the boy would be needed later on.'

The pain over, Snape allowed himself to grovel further. Every cringing word to gain back the Dark Lord's trust was another knife in his back, another stone to stumble the one who had nearly destroyed him. Although he dragged his body through the mud to prove his loyalty, it was the mud he would throw in Lord Voldemort's face.

Voldemort did not even bother to pick up his wand, but instead, savagely kicked him in the jaw – Snape tasted blood in his mouth. 'Pain curses are too clean for you, Snape. _Dirt_ is too clean for you. As soon as she has finished with Wormtail, I should think Nagini could develop a taste for you. You're of the same weak and withered breed as he is.'

With disgust, Snape looked up, and saw the one to whom he was being compared. It was Peter Pettigrew, that incompetant little wizard who had idolised Potter and Black for so long, hovering around his master and kissing his cloak. Snape channelled all his remaining fear into rage. So he was a pathetic, feeble runt, was he? That dark wizard, so full of his own power, thought he could read minds, and yet Snape was betraying him before his eyes. Voldemort could not read minds, and did not care enough for human nature to see when someone was lying to him. He thrived on cowardice, on wretched deferring souls. The fear of another was nectar to him, and if that trembling servant was showing the dread that he would be cast out and destroyed, then that servant was worth unicorn blood to the Dark Lord. The shrinking apprehension, the never-ending bitter struggle to prove loyalty – it was this that Lord Voldemort desired of his servants. Snape held the anger inside him, keeping it like a miser keeps his gold. Lord Voldemort loved fear – and although Snape would show it, he would quake and tremble and kiss his cloak – he refused to feel it. He would not let the hand of fear clutch his heart. Voldemort could rule him no longer.

'My Lord – Barty Crouch was caught…'

'I already know that,' Voldemort said, his voice sharpened steel. 'You need not believe that one measly piece of information will buy back my trust. My other followers already know what I require of them. But you – I will need a little more from you, Snape, if you do not want to share Wormtail's inevitable fate.'

'My Lord, whatever it takes.'

'There is an Auror – a woman called Philips. I want her dead, Snape, and bring me her body.'

*

Snape could taste bitter disillusionment. He hadn't thought it would be easy, going back, and yet this… Had he been a fool? There was no way he would kill an insect for Voldemort, let alone a woman. What could he do? Flee now and hope to save his own life? But no use in giving up so early. He Disapparated from amongst the Death Eaters, and found a place where he might light a fire, so that he might consult Dumbledore. Casting in the powder, and summoning Dumbledore's office, he was surprised to see, amongst the flames, that Dumbledore was still awake, although alone.

'Professor Dumbledore.'

The headmaster looked up, and saw Snape's face in the flames of the fire in his office.

'Severus – is all going well?'

'Albus, he wants me to kill an Auror – and bring him her body.'

Dumbledore frowned. 'Yes, I'd suspected that Lord Voldemort might have a special task for you to prove your loyalty. Who was the Auror?'

'A woman called Philips.' Dumbledore's eyes widened a little, as if with recognition, but he did not show this in his words.

'I will talk to her. We may be able to find some way of tricking Voldemort – perhaps Darught of the Living Death? Stay where you are, Severus. It may have to wait until tomorrow morning, but we can form a plan.'

Dumbledore's office vanished from the flames, and Snape sat back, for a sleepless night. He could not sleep tonight, even through the strange triumph he had had – _he was not afraid of Voldemort any longer _– but he had known that already. It was not Voldemort in the height of his powers that frightened Snape. It was the Severus Snape who had longed to be there at his side.

And of course, there was this woman. He rather doubted that she would want to help him – how could anyone phrase a request like the one they would request of her? 'We'd like you to risk your life so that our spy, a convicted Death Eater, can win back the loyalty of Voldemort.' He might as well go back to Hogwarts and continue his pointless life as a potions teacher.

The sky was clouded over, that night – the moon, when it occasionally appeared, was a tiny slither of white. Snape was no poet, to him it seemed more like possibly a cut-off fingernail rather than some lyrical metaphor. And what use was poetry, anyhow?

A few hours after dawn, Snape spoke with Dumbledore again. The Auror was willing to risk her life, and he didn't know whether to be pleased or filled with dread. Yet he went to find her, anyway.

The Auror Philips' house was an ordinary looking one, on a Muggle street in Manchester. The few people walking through the street that morning stared at Snape, but like most unsuspecting Muggles, they looked only for as long as politeness would let them, at this worn-looking man in the blackest of black robes.

Snape knocked on the door, and waited. After a few seconds, the woman answered it. She had black hair, but an open, gentle face. She stared at him for a second, and frowned a little.

'Ms. Philips? I'm…' There was something odd about her…

'You're the spy?'

'Yes.'

'Come in…' She went through all the formalities, although it seemed scarcely appropriate for a man sent to kill her, and soon he was seated and awaiting a cup of coffee, which was, as he thought with grim humour, just like him. Black and unsweetened.

He couldn't catch what it was – what he'd seen about the Auror that he knew. A glance around the room told him little that he could work from. She was obviously married, with a child – a girl, as the photographs showed. And here, on the coffee table, was a photograph, a Muggle photograph. He had seen it before somewhere – a man and a woman arm in arm. The man was a Muggle, he had got the photographer to surprise the woman, before he had known she was a witch. And they had married a year later – this Muggle photograph still took pride of place over their other, magical pictures. How could this picture be here, in this room?

The Auror walked back in, and paused as she saw him looking at the photograph.

'My parents…' she began to explain, and then looked at him, the sudden dawn of realisation growing on her face, until she exclaimed, her face a strange mixture of joy and horror, just one word. 'Severus!'

Snape looked up at her, and recognised her at last. 'Selina…'

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Thanks to everyone who reviewed. I know what's going to happen in the next chapter, but I'm a bit hazy from that point onwards, so the next one should be along soon. Please review and tell me what you think. 

And now a quick distraction…

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Signs you read too much Harry Potter!

You have a tattooed scar which you claim hurts 

On the birth of your child, you can't decide between James, Harry, Sirius, Remus or Rubeus 

You flinch whenever anyone says 'You-know-who' 

You've bought all the special edition mousemats… and you don't have a computer 

You've written a Sorting Hat song for your own school houses 

You've also bought the glasses, and broken them deliberately 

Not only that, you keep trying to fix them magically 

You ask directions for Diagon Alley, having failed to find it in the London A-Z 

You suspect the Good Pub Guide of poor research when you can't find the Three Broomsticks in its pages 

You've written a letter requesting Quidditch to be put in the Olympics 

Someone left a Harry Potter book in the toilet, and there's now a queue several people long outside waiting for you to finish 

Not only on the internet, but in real life you insist that people call you Sirius or Hermione and you won't answer to anything else 

You've gone into a sweet shop and requested Ton-Tongue-Toffee 

You've been arrested/caused yourself an injury running into the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10 at King's Cross Station

Until next time!


	3. Risk and Reminiscences

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Disclaimer – Mostly JK Rowling

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Chapter 3 – Risk and Reminiscence

Selina put down the coffee, and sat down next to him. 'Severus,' she repeated softly, and reached out, to stroke her smooth, concerned hand down his cheek. But how could it really be Selina?

He said nothing. The sight of her erupted a tumult of emotions within him. They clamoured like a hundred cymbals, loud and indiscernible.

Selina took her hand away again, looking at him thoughtfully. 'You didn't flinch – you always used to back away whenever I touched you, like I was some disease.' Still, he said nothing. 'You look so unhealthy,' she suddenly said. 'Your skin is so sunken and pale – I've worried about you, Severus, worried ever since I learned of your trial as a Death Eater! It was a shock, but not – not a surprise, if you understand me. I'm sure Mother knew, but she never said – she let my fellow Aurors tell me, long after it was over.'

Snape numbly looked back to the woman in the photograph. He said, weakly, 'Is she… still alive?'

'She died last year. You should have seen her, Severus, she loved you…'

He fixed his opaque black eyes on her cool, clear blue ones. 'How could she love me, Selina? All I ever did was hurt her. I didn't deserve to see her again.'

Selina said, softly, almost as if she didn't intend him to hear, 'She always said you hurt yourself more.'

Snape heard the words, but mentally brushed them away. His voice retaining the measured, emotionless style he usually used, he said, 'I'm working at Hogwarts now.' As if she were a distant cousin or former employer. 'After… after I… after Voldemort was defeated in the eighties, Dumbledore agreed to take me on as a potions teacher, head of Slytherin house. One of the few people who would employ a – a former Death Eater. Who didn't possess the charms of Lucius Malfoy, anyway.'

The hand was back on his cheek. Selina's voice was still soft, and cold, like his. 'I heard about the spying you did – it was very impressive…'

Snape tensed at this attempt at reassurance. 'It could never excuse what I did.'

Looking at each other at such close range was becoming claustrophobic. Selina shifted uncomfortably, and got up. She paced a little.

'I was angry at you for so long, Severus. Just knowing that – you were still on the side of good, fighting with us… it kept me going. I couldn't hate you when you hate yourself so much.'

Snape's black eyes flashed with irritation. She had not seen him in over twenty years, who was she to judge what he thought of himself? Was she going to play analyst? His emotions were his own business.

'In any case…' he began.

'No one would ever have guessed we were best friends as children.'

'Our childhood is over now, Selina,' he reminded her.

'Severus, I've been waiting over twenty years to say this. Please don't interrupt me. It was Slytherin – and Lucius bloody Malfoy – that stole you from me. I nearly begged the Sorting Hat to put me in Slytherin too, so that maybe we could be friends again, but then I saw how you'd changed, how you'd become shallow and cruel, and I couldn't be like that, not even for you. I knew it could never be the same between us.'

He looked away, trying to remember that far back. When Father had died they'd stuck together, but at Hogwarts – it was on the Hogwarts express it had started, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew had made friends with him – they were playing Exploding Snap. And Lucius Malfoy, a third year bully, had come past and cast a hex on Pettigrew's cat. Something ridiculous, like temporary baldness, that had seemed quite funny at the time. And after Malfoy had strolled off, gloating, Snape had made his excuses to Potter and Pettigrew, and followed him. He'd seen where the power lay, and he was not going to be bullied, so he would join the bullies. The Sorting Hat had been thoughtful. 'You're a difficult one,' it had told him. 'You're ripe for Ravenclaw but a more powerful seed might be growing.'

'I'm a Slytherin!' He had thought, with all his might.

'So you are,' the Hat had replied. Years later, in Dumbledore's office, he had sneakily tried the Hat again.

'Back again, are you? But why ask? You're a Slytherin through and through.' And Snape was satisfied.

But Selina was a Gryffindor, sworn enemy of the Slytherins. He didn't admit it, but he had also been wishing when the Hat went onto her head, that she would be a Slytherin too… but he shut out that desire soon after. Why would he want the company of a Gryffindor?

'I'm sorry,' he said, a little plaintively. 'I didn't know it upset you.'

She rolled her eyes upwards. 'That's not the _point_…'

Behind them the door opened, and Selina looked around.

'That would be Neil back with Meg – Neil is my husband.'

A small girl with black curls came bounding in, and dived into Selina's arms at the first sight of her. Selina smiled. 'Hello Meg… have a nice time with Daddy?'

'Daddy' himself followed, grinning at the sight of his wife and daughter, and then frowning at Snape. 'Who's this?' he asked guardedly.

'Severus,' Selina said. 'My brother.'

*

Neil Philips took the bags from the shopping trip into the kitchen – he had bought in wizard shops, although in some ways he seemed like a Muggle – probably a Muggle-born wizard. He had not offered a hand, a greeting, or anything other than a steady, suspicious look towards Snape, and Snape had not seen fit to break it with falsified amiability. The child was still clinging to Selina like a limpet, but presently she detached her head long enough to look at the strange man who was talking to Mummy.

'Who's that?' she asked.

'Your Uncle Severus.'

Registering the word 'Uncle', the small girl reached out to him, and the next thing Snape knew, she was buried in his chest, her arms clasped around him as tight as any useful constriction curse. Selina looked at her daughter, then looked at her brother's face, and started to laugh. 'Severus… you look so horrified! She won't hurt you.'

She wouldn't, and yet – why was this child attached to him? Why was Selina letting him stand there, his arms clumsily around the infant who had pounced on him – struggling to hold on to this delicate child. Selina stopped her laughter when she saw his genuine bewilderment. A lostness that she had so rarely seen on his face.

'It's all right,' she said. 'She must like you, that's all. Hold her properly – she won't be frightened. Although most sensible children would probably run at the sight of you looking like that…' He did not smile, or even appear to have heard her. 'She's not fragile – you won't hurt her…'

'Uncle Severus' did hold his arms around Meg a little more firmly, and absent-mindedly stroked her black hair. He did not know what he was doing, or why he was doing it, but there he was, the terror of Hogwarts, stroking an over-affectionate child.

*

Powdered root of asphodel – infusion of wormwood. Selina watched her brother's lithe fingers prepare the potion, watched her husband wringing his hands, her daughter, with a lovely, childlike tactlessness, playfully skip around the robs of her newly discovered uncle. He probably reminded her of the rather sad Muggle impression of a vampire, the kind that gave her sweets at Halloween parties. Severus – he was dark as ever, more shut-off than she had ever known him, still not wanting her near. But there was hope for him yet, she reflected, because he felt remorse… perhaps he was coming to terms with life at last. He was more separated than he had ever been, but maybe – she allowed herself to hope – maybe it was the part of his soul, the best friend from when she was small, that had woken up and seen the ruin he had caused, and was fighting again. That he needed time to find out who he was before he would show his true self to others again.

Meg had run outside into the garden, and Neil was mutely watching Snape at his cauldron. Selina, too, allowed herself to reconsider the matter at hand. She was an Auror and she had been called to risk her life in the fight against Voldemort. She knew her passion for this alarmed her husband, who could only say 'You-know-who'. But she, although she trembled at the thought, could not preserve her own life over and above others. She knew that Severus had saved so many whilst spying so many years ago. He had killed too – but the 'best friend' was fighting back. She left the room, and scribbled a note on parchment.

Neil came in short moments later, his face a painting of worry.

'Selina, I'm not happy with this – can you trust him?'

'Severus had fought against Voldemort before.'

'It's so risky…'

'It is, Neil, it is. I can't deny it.'

She looked at his face, his handsome, intelligent features. _I might never see him again._

'I'll be all right,' she lied, and then realising her own transparency, 'If anything goes wrong, make up a story to tell Meg. The truth's too evil for her just yet…'

She wrapped her arms around him. Would it be her last passionate embrace?

'I love you Neil, but I must do this. If we cannot risk anything against You-know-who, he'll destroy us all.'

Powdered asphodel – infusion of wormwood – and a curse scar. Selina held her face set grim and pale as she took a knife and inflicted her own scar. Her husband looked horrified, and Snape could not help but stare. She was so much braver than him.

'Curse the scar, Severus,' she told him, her voice falsely brisk. 'We want to make this seem _right_.'

Neil Philips turned his face away… Snape's wand shook as he cast the mildest of pain curses. Selina gasped – he watched her touch the wound tenderly, it must have stung her so… 'Severus, if anything happens to me, stay calm. Don't give the game away or we'll both be dead.' She resolutely drank the potion.

Selina seemed for all the world like a corpse. Her husband looked at the pale figure of his wife, with her freshly inflicted wound, and stared at Snape with disgust.

'How could you do this?' He demanded. 'Are you a monster?'

'I do what I have to do,' Snape replied curtly. He silently added _Yes, I am a monster._

*

He was soon back, grovelling before the Dark Lord in the old Riddle House and offering up the apparently dead body of a woman who was not only an Auror, but his own sister as a gift to prove his loyalty. His blood was frozen in every vein, and yet his heart pounded.

'Very good,' Voldemort said ironically. 'Avery…' he motioned to a young Death Eater, probably the son of the Avery he knew. The boy was in his late teens, so like Snape in so many ways. He came forward.

'Take this and burn it in the bonfire in the garden.'

The green eyes burned Snape as he watched the boy carry Selina down to her death. Should he cry out, should he run after the boy?

It was no good. Selina had been right – and it was her choice. He did not need to hide the horror from his face… it had turned to ice years ago. And yet… somehow… he could not help but watch his sister, for that last time…

__

Mean place to end, huh? Please tell me if you like, I'm totally unsure.

And now a little Snape's Redemption Quiz…

What two things, according to this, does Snape have in common with Harry Potter? What does Snape have in common with Voldemort? Any ideas which Dickens character Selina reminds me of? Clue – she's minor but in one of the more famous books. 

Anyway… until next time.


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